Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Not all heroes wear capes.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You cannot shame the shameless.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

T R E 4 5 O N

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

People are complicated. Love is not.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Gaetz Keeps Digging

Gaetz Keeps Digging

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Scandal weasel Rep. Matt Gaetz refuses to drop the damn shovel. Maybe he’s acting as his own attorney, which would explain why he has such a fool for a client, because wouldn’t any competent lawyer serve him a nice steaming mug of STFU? In every TV appearance since the story broke, Gaetz has dug a deeper hole by doing things like defending or denying skeevy activities for which he hasn’t yet been accused.

Today, Gaetz wrote an op-ed in the wingnut Washington Examiner (no linky for the stinky; is easily Googlable). The piece is about what you’d expect if you’ve followed the disastrous media appearances, with Gaetz defending his conduct in gross and squirrely ways and trying to rope bystanders into his predicament. Here’s how it starts off:

Washington scandal cycles are predictable, and sex is especially potent in politics. Let me first remind everyone that I am a representative in Congress, not a monk, and certainly not a criminal.

LOL! It gets worse. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Folks won’t be surprised that bizarre claims are being made about me shortly after I decided to take on the most powerful institutions in the Beltway: the establishment; the FBI; the Biden Justice Department; the Cheney political dynasty; even the Justice Department under Trump.

The wheels of the bus go round and round, and thump-thump, there goes Barr. Also, it’s ironic that Gaetz calls out the “Cheney political dynasty” when he’s a nepotism legislator his own self, but I guess he’s counting on that not being widely known outside of Florida. Or maybe it’s just a profound lack of self-awareness, which is entirely believable with that blockhead.

Anyhoo, there’s a lot of herp-de-derp Hunter Biden and blah blah blah Bill Clinton and yada yada yada Andrew Cuomo, but then we finally get around to a preview of upcoming attractions:

You’ll see more “drip, drip, drip” of leaks into the media from the corrupt Justice Department and others. When you do, ask yourself why. They aren’t coming for me — they are coming for you. I’m just in the way.

Uh huh. That’s just what The Former Guy said even as his campaign was draining supporters’ bank accounts with shady “default” recurring contributions. It’s the busted conman’s refrain.

I think there’s a decent chance this scandal ultimately ends Gaetz’s political career since he’s a moron who allegedly left a paper trail of his crimes. His district probably won’t cough up anyone appreciably better from a legislative standpoint, but the fewer rich and entitled frat-boy Republicans in Congress, the better, so good riddance to bad rubbish.

Here’s hoping Gaetz’s flame-out is epic enough for political gossip rags like Politico to start looking at his relationship with FL Gov. Ron DeSantis. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t think DeSantis is stupid enough to be involved in the Gaetz-Greenberg criminal activities portfolio (although I suppose that’s possible).

But Gaetz was definitely a high-profile DeSantis ally. Gaetz and DeSantis were pals during their statehouse days. Gaetz was an early supporter of DeSantis’s gubernatorial bid and co-chaired the transition team when DeSantis won in 2018. DeSantis should definitely be asked about that. Repeatedly.

Open thread!

 

 

 

Reader Interactions

145Comments

  2. 2.

    James E Powell

    But Gaetz was definitely a high-profile DeSantis ally. Gaetz and DeSantis were pals during their statehouse days. Gaetz was an early supporter of DeSantis’s gubernatorial bid and co-chaired the transition team when DeSantis won in 2018. DeSantis should definitely be asked about that. Repeatedly.

    It will turn out that Gaetz merely got DeSantis coffee a couple of times. He might have made some copies, stuffed envelopes, you know the usual campaign activities of the low level staffers whom the candidates barely know,

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Gaetz Keeps Digging

    Gaetz: “Do you hear that? What is it?”

    Staffer: “I’m pretty sure it’s Chinese.”

    //

  6. 6.

    randy khan

    They aren’t coming for me — they are coming for you.

    So long as you’re a Member of Congress with a penchant for teenage girlfriends.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    It’s half past three in the morning and I am watching Derek Chauvin’s defence counsel cross-examine Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo. He’s throwing irrelevant what-ifs at the chief. I haven’t been a court reporter in decades; but I can still tell when a lawyer is flailing, like this one is.

  8. 8.

    Steve in the ATL

    On a related note, question for the group:

    What do I do with old litter boxes?

    Our cat recently moved to Brooklyn and we aren’t getting another one for a while. We have a couple of litter boxes we no longer need. One is only a couple of months old, but a used litter box is a used litter box regardless of age, right?

  11. 11.

    Amir Khalid

    \@James E Powell:

    It will turn out that Gaetz merely got DeSantis coffee a couple of times. He might have made some copies, stuffed envelopes, you know the usual campaign activities of the low level staffers whom the candidates barely know,

    The Trumpish Gambit, as it is called.

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steve in the ATL:
    I too have a litter box that is currently surplus to requirements due to my recent loss. My plan is to find the litter box another user at some point.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    @Amir Khalid: So glad to hear that! I’ve wondered how you’re coping with your catless state but thought it would be indelicate to ask.

  17. 17.

    Alison Rose

    not a monk

    Indeed, only boring loser monks would avoid pursuing sexual relationships with teenage girls. How dare we oversensitive cancel culture babies expect members of Congress to abstain from such such mundane hobbies as sex trafficking.

  19. 19.

    Benw

    Pretty telling this moron in Congress fails to list Congress as one of the most powerful institutions

  23. 23.

    Steve in the ATL

    So my options are:

    1. Get a new cat;

    2. Bleach and donate to shelter; or

    3. Raise ducklings?

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    “Never apologize, never explain, never back down, ALWAYS double down, and keep the projection going 24/7″…you could set it to a catchy little tune and you’d have “GQP: The Musical”

    not that anyone would pay good money to see it, I’m just saying…

  26. 26.

    Sebastian

    Gaetz is fucked on so many levels. Once it sinks in how many decades he will spend in prison he will use anything in his possession to get a better deal.

    Which he will only get if he sells out Trump, DeSantis, and GOP (Congress and Florida)

    Garland would be wise to appoint a Special Investigator/Prosecutor.

  29. 29.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Enjoy it. Usually, it’s only in Hollywood where you get to see the bad guy shot/stabbed/thrown off a building/etc. in the end. Witnessing Gaetz’s self-destruction in the real world is glorious. If loving this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

  30. 30.

    TomatoQueen

    @Jeffro: My late mother would have said, ” I wouldn’t give you two cents for it.”  She was born in 1934, tho’, and was known for being thrifty .

  31. 31.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I was wondering why no one had asked about that!

    It’s not a euphemism—the cat *literally* moved from Atlanta to Brooklyn, along with one of our kids. We have been mostly living out at the lake for a year now so it  was a good move for both kid and cat. 

  34. 34.

    MattF

    I guess I have some lingering interest in whether Gaetz manages a true, explosive self-immolation or merely shrinks and then exits, stage right.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @2liberal:

    @Steve in the ATL:On a related note, question for the group:

    What do I do with old litter boxes?

    wrap it up and send it to cole.

    Be sure to label the package CREDENZA so he’ll know it’s legit.

  40. 40.

    quakerinabasement

    They aren’t coming for me — they are coming for you.

    Holy hell, this clown is full of himself, isn’t he? We’re going to take down the American Way of Life, but we have to go through Matt Gaetz to do it, by golly!

    AND he’s “standing up to” the FBI AND the Biden and Trump DOJ? Put down the lantern, Diogenes, we found your man!

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    @The Thin Black Duke: True, and it’s especially gratifying because Gaetz is the smarmy offspring of a rich, corrupt Republican shithead, so no one is more surprised than Matt Gaetz that he might actually have to face the music. His dad bought his way out of every other jam, so he probably expected a wad of cash to make this go away too and must be shocked that it’s not working.

    The same can be said of Gaetz’s accomplice Joel Greenberg, another rich man’s worthless son who thought the rules did not apply to him and is now finding out otherwise. I fervently hope both spend at least a decade in prison.

  43. 43.

    Jay C

    They aren’t coming for me — they are coming for you.

    Maybe, Matt: but they’re going to be grabbing YOUR ass first….

  45. 45.

    markregan

    @Cheryl Rofer: That is a really fine column — all the better for being a non-humorous column by a humor columnist in an absurd situation.  Surprisingly, that works.  Thanks for linking to it.​

  46. 46.

    J R in WV

    Fox News contributor Kat Timpf on Sunday blasted “puritanical” liberals for opposing a suspected sexual affair between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and an underage girl.

    During an appearance on Fox News, Timpf observed that the Gaetz scandal has “everything.”

    “It’s got sex, it’s got drugs, it has Matt Gaetz, who is a very polarizing figure and he’s a very staunch supporter of Donald Trump so people either really love him or they really hate him,” she opined.

    But there’s a big problem with this person’s assertion. “It’s got sex, it’s got drugs…”

    It wasn’t sex — it was RAPE because she was underaged. If it was a girlfriend of a similar age to Gaetz, perhaps liberals wouldn’t be so disapproving, but it isn’t, it’s a girl, not a woman, and it wasn’t sex, it was RAPE.

    Faux ladies can’t tell, don’t know the difference?

    What the hell are they doing sharing erroneous non-factual opinions on air?

    I would be educating this person, prior to their discharge for cause, here’s a box of stuff, call us if anything is missing from the box!

    Sad!

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    @markregan: I read that Alexandra Petri column this morning while i was at the hair salon.  (Aside: For the first time since June!)

    My reaction was the same as yours.  So pleased that it was a non-humorous column, and she said everything I wanted to say.

    Every one of these elected officials that were yucking it up looking at private images of naked women on the floor of the house needs to be publicly shamed.

    I learned this year that it takes just two people for a conspiracy, and now I find that it only takes to disgusting males to conjure up a locker room anywhere.

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @markregan: Wow, right you are — it’s an excellent column. This part:

    The moments when people make up their secret minds about what is normal and what is acceptable are never big. They are always in private, when no one can see that you have failed the test, when all you were doing was trying to avoid any discomfort, be cool, play along. But there is a price. The price is that the Matt Gaetzes out there will leave the interaction thinking they have understood the world correctly. That what they are doing is working. That this is how the world is. But it is the accumulation of these little assents that make the world this way.

    Exactly right.

  51. 51.

    jl

    So, Barr was really a Deep State mole in the Trump administration? Obviously. All to bring down Matt Gaetz, the leader of glorious future Trumpism and savior of the nation.

    Anyone seen Barr recently? No. He’s cackling in that pizza joint basement with Hillary Clinton and the ghost of Bill Gates (who was assassinated in India several years ago).

    It all makes so much sense.

    Everyone knows this is true, but some refuse to admit it.

  54. 54.

    Wapiti

    @Cheryl Rofer: We had an Easter brunch with my sister and (bi-racial) niece yesterday. That Petri column could apply to a lot of uncomfortable racial situations as well. People need to say “no” more often to shitty behavior from their peers.

  55. 55.

    BC in Illinois

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    @markregan:

    That column by Alexandra Petri has been on the WaPo website for three hours now. It has more than a thousand comments.

    So I am not writing this for Matt Gaetz. I am talking to the person who was on the receiving end. The person who was presented with this behavior and had a choice of how to respond. I am talking to the person without whose chuckle or back-slap this situation would, perhaps, have been just a little less bad.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    @jl:

    the ghost of Bill Gates (who was assassinated in India several years ago).

    How do you assassinate a ghost?

  59. 59.

    trnc

    @2liberal: ​
     

    What do I do with old litter boxes?

    wrap it up and send it to cole.

    If it still has the last used litter in it, donate it to the Gaetz defense fund.

  60. 60.

    piratedan

    @Cheryl Rofer:  this is the part that seems to be tailor-made for our Capitol Hill Tiger Beat crew, while they go breathlessly from one trusted GOP source to another, asking if they too saw the picturesque captures of Congressional sexual conquests…. and if they have any comments…

    Hell, it beats any of them actually looking at the Infrastructure plan and wondering if the ratio and the choices made for what gets funded are financially sound… that would take… work

     

    and….. if the GOP Congressmen were presented with these images, why in the hell did they not out his ass to leadership, or the Press or the DOJ?

  64. 64.

    Betty Cracker

    @Wapiti: I had a similar thought when I read it. It’s widely applicable to peer pressure situations, from schoolyard bullying to racist comments to sexist and homophobic bullshit, etc. Petri is absolutely correct: those small assents to shitty behavior in the name of keeping the peace or avoiding awkwardness add up to make their own shitty reality.

  67. 67.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Sebastian:

     

    Gaetz is fucked on so many levels. Once it sinks in how many decades he will spend in prison he will use anything in his possession to get a better deal.

    Which he will only get if he sells out Trump, DeSantis, and GOP (Congress and Florida)

    Garland would be wise to appoint a Special Investigator/Prosecutor.

    Candidate Biden said the Attorney General works for the USA and he would not direct the AG at political enemies. It turns out that Biden doesn’t have to. I wonder if he had a deeper understanding, with some leaks, about how perverted, widespread, and corrupt the GOP is.

    Biden also wondered a few weeks ago if the GOP would still exist for the next Presidential election. Again, I wonder how far ahead his knowledge goes beyond what gets in the press.

  68. 68.

    PJ

    @Mallard Filmore: ​
      It doesn’t take a weather man to tell you that it’s raining. That the GOP is splitting between the Chamber of Commerce types and the Q-Anon types was evident as soon as Trump was elected (if Trump hadn’t been elected, it might have been that the Q-Anoners could have been suppressed, but too late now).

  71. 71.

    Roger Moore

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    What does this mean?

    I think it means she didn’t buy something that was sold as a litter box. Instead, she bought a cheap plastic tote with walls high enough to keep the cat from kicking litter everywhere.

  72. 72.

    jl

    @Baud:

    ” How do you assassinate a ghost? ”

    The reading ability of Baud XXXX!! is what we need tp restore the glorious leadership we lost when Trump was cheated out of his rightful lifetime presidency.

  73. 73.

    gvg

    @Steve in the ATL: I don’t know. In my experience as soon as you donate unused litter boxes, more cats appear. I am currently fostering/taming former ferals to adopt out. I just posted one who has become friendly as ready for adoption. Before that I had given away some boxes, and had to buy 2 more. It’s amazing how much more poop 5 teenage kittens make than 1 adult long term pet. My neighborhood has a bunch of ferals and some of us have been trapping and getting them neutered. The older wild adults we release and keep feeding but without more litters. The kittens we are trying to find permanent homes for. Evidently growing bodies produce more poop. I think it may be a jinx to get rid of all litter boxes.

  75. 75.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jl: Anyone seen Barr recently? No. He’s cackling in that pizza joint basement with Hillary Clinton and the ghost of Bill Gates (who was assassinated in India several years ago).

    Speaking of wackodoffle conspiracy theories and since this an open thread. Here is on odd thought, all this BS we are seeing now, is this product people who spent the last 11 year watching Ancient Aliens until their brains turned to mush?  The video below the make waded threw the series and it’s a surprising the overlap between it an the Q Conspiracy Theory.  Even those Gaetz quote Betty posted the language sound like something out of Ancient Aliens show.

    https://youtu.be/vDq8vQ0t67A

  76. 76.

    Roger Moore

    @Mallard Filmore: ​
     

    Does it fling the poopies into the neighbor’s yard?

    Sorry, but no. It deposits them into trash-bag-lined drawer under the device. When the drawer gets full, you replace the bag and top up the litter. If you want to throw them into the neighbor’s yard, you have to do it yourself.

  78. 78.

    Roger Moore

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Here is on odd thought, all this BS we are seeing now, is this product people watching way to much Ancient Aliens?

    I doubt it.  It’s not so much that one causes the other but that both are caused by the same kind of mental deficiency.  If it weren’t Ancient Aliens or QAnon, it would be some other zany theory.

  80. 80.

    tokyokie

    Matt Gaetz is reminding me more and more of David Hall.

     

    Hall was a phenomenally crooked Democratic governor of Oklahoma back in the early 1970s. He narrowly escaped being prematurely tossed from office during his 1974 re-election campaign when he beat a criminal indictment because the Nixon appointee federal prosecutor was an incompetent hatchet man who insisted on trying the case himself. Then, during the time between his finishing third in the Democratic gubernatorial primary and leaving office, he approached the state official (It would have been the younger of John Rogers and Cleta John Rogers; they were a father-and-son combo I never could keep straight who both held statewide office and were both crooked, but that was back when any Oklahoma politician named “Rogers” was assumed to be related to Will and therefore would win election.) with sole discretion for investing a state retirement plan with a bribe if he would steer a few million bucks to some scheme a couple of Hall’s cronies had going. Rogers, who was already under investigation for criminal activity, thought he could score points with prosecutors by not being involved in every crooked scheme he could, went to the attorney general (I believe it was the musically named Larry Derryberry, who wasn’t crooked, just a major chickenshit) for advice on how to handle the matter. And the AG had Rogers’ office rigged with bugs.

     

    Anyway, Rogers invited Hall back to his office, and got him to repeat the terms of the bribe offer. (I’ve always imagined Rogers asking Hall to speak closer to the flowerpot.) The feds rounded up Hall’s two Texas cronies, and within minutes, they flipped on Hall. And with a recording of Hall’s bribe offering and the testimony of his two associates in the criminal plot, not even the Nixon boob could screw up getting a conviction.

     

    Upon conviction, Hall claimed it was all a Republican plot to exact revenge on the Democrats for running Nixon out of office. And the only time I saw his name in the paper between then and his death in 2016 was when he was busted for selling phony greenhouse franchises in Saudi Arabia while he was out of prison on medical furlough.

     

    And I didn’t make any of this up.

  83. 83.

    HypersphericalCow

    If Gaetz has a lawyer, I assume he’s unconscious, sprawled out on the floor of his office, with an empty bottle of bourbon nearby.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Here is on odd thought, all this BS we are seeing now, is this product people who spent the last 11 year watching Ancient Aliens until their brains turned to mush?

    Probably not.

    The video below the make waded threw the series and it’s a surprising the overlap between it an the Q Conspiracy Theory.  Even those Gaetz quote Betty posted the language sound like something out of Ancient Aliens show.

    I partly blame the Internet. Not because the Internet is bad, blah blah. But the Internet makes it easier for idiots to reach out and find other fools and to reinforce the nonsense they want to believe. It is also easier for bad actors to jump in and add to the nonsense.

    Years ago, I might hear about flat earth believers. But now I can easily find threads, blogs, online communities, YouTube videos where these excitable fools blather about their foolish beliefs. Previously, they would have to work harder to find others like them, and work harder still to get attention.

    Hell, just by typing this, I might get served up an ad for some right wing nonsense.

     

    ETA: And it is not just an American problem.

  86. 86.

    Ben Cisco

    @Brachiator: Certanly gave rise to a passel of idiots convinced they’re possessed of the real truth because their “research” involved online communing with other “sooper jeanyusses.”

  89. 89.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    People used to believe the internet would make everyone smarter by providing access to all our knowledge. Instead it made people dumber by providing access to all our bullshit.

  90. 90.

    germy

    Punchbowl News: If Matt Gaetz is indicted, and the charges include sex with a teenager, Republicans will call for Gaetz’s resignation themselves, accoring to senior GOP lawmakers. They won’t wait for Democrats to make that demand; they’ll go first.

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 5, 2021

    Either way, as long as he’s gone.

  92. 92.

    Brachiator

    @Ben Cisco:

    Certanly gave rise to a passel of idiots convinced they’re possessed of the real truth because their “research” involved online communing with other “sooper jeanyusses.”

    Bad actors, including people at Fox News and other places also know that they can instigate stuff and get a fair amount of play all around the country and the world.

  93. 93.

    Sebastian

    @Mallard Filmore:

    I would say he knew and that’s why he made that statement. We got so desensitized by the constant onslaught of outrage and scandal overload that we miss the historic magnitude of Biden’s utterance.

    The sitting President of the United States of America basically predicted that one of the two major parties, the one de facto ruling the country for decades, will no longer exist in two years.

    Keep in mind that we are only looking at this from an corruption angle but Russia is actively gearing for military confrontation in the Arctic and the e are very likely to enter a very contentious phase of bilateral relationship, closer to the Cold War than what we had the last two decades.

    Being too tight with Russia will be very very bad for a lot of folks. 

  94. 94.

    germy

    A legal analyst on TV tonight said that child sex trafficking requires force, fraud or coercion. But that’s only true for sex trafficking of *adults*. When it comes to minors, no evidence of force, fraud or coercion is necessary.— Dave Aronberg (@aronberg) April 2, 2021

    The federal crime of child sex trafficking doesn’t require interstate travel or even movement. It’s enough if a minor is recruited or enticed to have sex in exchange for something of value. Use of a cell phone or internet app can provide federal jurisdiction.— Dave Aronberg (@aronberg) April 2, 2021

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    ObOpenThread: Nancy LeTourneau at her blog:

    Monday, April 5, 2021
    The Two-Fer in Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

    Perhaps more than any other commentator, Ron Brownstein has chronicled the political impact of this country’s changing demographics. I remember being particularly struck by something he wrote back in 2012 titled, “The Gray and the Brown: The Generational Mismatch.”

    In an age of diminished resources, the United States may be heading for an intensifying confrontation between the gray and the brown.

    Two of the biggest demographic trends reshaping the nation in the 21st century increasingly appear to be on a collision course that could rattle American politics for decades. From one direction, racial diversity in the United States is growing, particularly among the young. Minorities now make up more than two-fifths of all children under 18, and they will represent a majority of all American children by as soon as 2023, demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution predicts.

    At the same time, the country is also aging, as the massive Baby Boom Generation moves into retirement. But in contrast to the young, fully four-fifths of this rapidly expanding senior population is white. That proportion will decline only slowly over the coming decades, Frey says, with whites still representing nearly two-thirds of seniors by 2040.

    One of the places Brownstein anticipated this confrontation playing out was a competition for taxpayer dollars.

    Although cultural disputes often generate the most heat, government budgets are likely to become the central point of conflict between younger minorities and older whites…At the national level, Congress faces…the competition between investing in education and other programs that benefit children, or spending on those that benefit seniors, primarily Medicare and Social Security.

    But the truth is, the issues that face these two groups are—like everything else—interconnected. As Brownstein tweeted recently, “There is no economic security for the gray without more economic opportunity for the brown.”

    […]

    It’s great to see our government planning decades ahead again. Biden gets it.

    Click on over – it’s a good read.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    People used to believe the internet would make everyone smarter by providing access to all our knowledge. Instead it made people dumber by providing access to all our bullshit.

    I have a theory. The Internet is a huge repository of accurate information. Some people fear and hate this. “Click here and see why you are wrong” can be devastating.

    So people fought back by deliberately creating lies and bullshit. There are anti-evolution sites, for example, that almost seem to be reliable science sites until you pay close attention. There are alternative right wing sites full of political gibberish.

    And there are people who will fight you to the death if you try to provide them with a counter to their ignorance, because their identities are dependent on believing stuff which is false or uncertain.

    And there are bad actors who believe that their own lives and fortunes are dependent on keeping people uninformed.

    Somebody said “the truth shall set you free.” Some people have a vested interest in keeping themselves and others bound by ignorance.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    The article doesn’t answer my questions.

    Can he tell us why he was in the crooked, felon tax collector’s office after business hours making fake IDs? Maybe in his next editorial.

  103. 103.

    Anya

    I am surprised he didn’t include Biden “falling down” walking up steps of Air Force One, since wingnutsphare seems to think that’s the biggest scandal in the world.

  105. 105.

    rivers

     

    @Cheryl Rofer: This is such an important column. And it doesn’t just apply to misogyny. For years I would ignore the kind of casual racist comment or joke that complete strangers who are white make to other white people, assuming all other white people must be racist too. I   told myself there was no point in making a fuss, that I would never see this person again, that it wasn’t as though I could change his mind. And then it dawned on me that every time a racist did this and I didn’t push back, I was not only complicit, I was sending him the message that he was right, that he could go on casually assuming a fellowship of racism with any white person without getting any response worse than silence or a nervous cough. If on the other hand I embarrassed him, he might think twice about making that assumption again.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Roger Moore:

    People used to believe the internet would make everyone smarter by providing access to all our knowledge. Instead it made people dumber by providing access to all our bullshit.

    To paraphrase Biden, I think the internet caused intelligence to go K-shaped.

  110. 110.

    The Moar You Know

    One of the places Brownstein anticipated this confrontation playing out was a competition for taxpayer dollars.

    @Another Scott: it’s not going to be a competition, just more legalized slavery for young people, unless they get on it and start voting. Every election, every race.  Something which has failed to happen in my entire 50+ year lifetime so far, even back in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the youngs had a tremendous demographic presence and some real motivation to not get sent to Vietnam and killed because their parents and grandparents were a bunch of paranoid assholes.

  111. 111.

    cain

    @Roger Moore: 
    Which one did you go with? I’m using one with crystals. But I hate the crystals – and replaced that with the Arm&Hammer slide litter and that has been working for me although I still have to scoop every few days.

  114. 114.

    Cameron

    I dunno.  I’m a patriot; if I had used litter boxes, I’d send them to Mar-a-Lago and mark them “To be opened ONLY by the REAL President of the United States.”  But I don’t own a cat.

  117. 117.

    J R in WV

    We use Feline Pine, or any pellet stove fuel like material.

    Smells good, piney, ourdoorsy, until it’s sawdust rather than pellets.

    Then you dump it for a new batch.

    Then there’s Matt Gaetz, whom you need to dump immediately!!

  118. 118.

    Elizabelle

    You had me at scandal weasel.

    Those two words fit so perfectly together.  And perfectly describe … this particular weasel.

    Whose behavior is noxious enough to inspire a serious, non-satiric column by the WaPost’s Alexandra Petri. This should not happen more than once

    As in: the first person Gaetz showed the photos of nude “conquests” should have shut him down. Made it clear that was not acceptable behavior.

    But: he was showing them to fellow Republicans. Therein lies one problem.

    ETA:  Cheryl Rofer got there first with Ms. Petri’s column.  At comment 32.

  119. 119.

    Elizabelle

    @Steve in the ATL:   “The cat moved to Brooklyn.”  I thought it was a euphemism too.

    “The [cat] is on the roof.”  Wasn’t that some bit from All in the Family, about breaking bad news?

    Anyway, glad to hear your former cat has a few more lives left.

  121. 121.

    Elizabelle

    @Mallard Filmore:

    Biden also wondered a few weeks ago if the GOP would still exist for the next Presidential election. Again, I wonder how far ahead his knowledge goes beyond what gets in the press.

    Yes.  That was an astonishing comment; could not tell if it was humorous or because some especially dark dealings were on Biden’s mind.  Or even a “watch yourselves, guys.”  To see.

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    @Booger:   Here’s Alexandra Petri’s column. Probably not “fair use”, but it’s a wonderful column and important enough it should be free of a paywall.  The last two paragraphs are killer.

    This should not happen more than once

    ETA:  And:  Watergirl posted it too, literally to the minute.  (7:12)  Taking mine down.

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    @Booger:  It’s so good. Not the whole thing, but a good bit of it.

    I keep coming back to the detail in CNN’s report that this wasn’t something Matt Gaetz did a single time, but repeatedly. Because if it happened more than once — if it happened twice, even — that is because the first time went better than it should have.

    To me, this is something you do, ideally, zero times. You never experience the impulse to do it, and you lead a pleasant life. You travel. You eat lunchmeat sandwiches. Maybe you do a marathon, or climb something. You lead a blithe existence for many decades, you die in your bed in your mid-nineties surrounded by your cherished relatives, and in all that time, you never walk up to a colleague on the floor of the House of Representatives and out of nowhere present him with a nude photograph of someone you claim to have had sex with.

    But if you can’t do it zero times, then ideally it happens only once. It happens only once, because the moment you do it, the person you show it to responds the way a person should respond. You produce your photograph to your colleague, and your colleague looks at you and says, “Never show that to anyone, ever again. Go home and rethink your life. I do not feel closer to you. If anything, I want to have you removed forcibly from my presence by strong gentlemen whose biceps are tattooed with ‘MOM.’ The fact that you thought this would make us closer makes me question every decision in my life that has led me to this point. Leave now and never come back.”

    But we can probably suppose that this is not what happened, because life is regrettably unstingy with moments like this, when a small awkward “no” seems too costly. Perhaps the person to whom this was shown emitted a sort of uncomfortable, nervous laugh, and this was viewed as acceptance enough. Or worse, he leered at it, encouraged it. Or, still worse (a scenario alleged to have existed during Gaetz’s time in the Florida state House), he joined a fun little club with Gaetz and others to assign themselves conquest points.

    So I am not writing this for Matt Gaetz. I am talking to the person who was on the receiving end. The person who was presented with this behavior and had a choice of how to respond. I am talking to the person without whose chuckle or back-slap this situation would, perhaps, have been just a little less bad.

    Alexandra Petri then goes on to suggest that these people could/should react more appropriately next time when an occasion arises.

    2k comments on her article already.

  127. 127.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:   I wish the WaPost would make some of its content free when it’s really important to the national dialogue, or maybe take down the paywall for an expanded number of views at some time after publication.  Perhaps a day or two.

    The conspiracy shit flies all over the place, and good, well reported and/or well reasoned stuff is locked up behind a paywall.

    Which perhaps should be way more temporary.  I would still pay for the content.  I suspect a lot of readers of the major national newspapers would.  We need to support good journalism.  It is not free.

  128. 128.

    trnc

    @germy: Punchbowl News: If Matt Gaetz is indicted, and the charges include sex with a teenager, Republicans will call for Gaetz’s resignation themselves, accoring to senior GOP lawmakers. They won’t wait for Democrats to make that demand; they’ll go first.

    Bad news, repubs – I’m pretty sure some dems have already said that he should resign if indicted. You don’t actually have to wait for the indictment to tell him to go if it happens.

  133. 133.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Elizabelle: If “we” need to support good journalism, then “we” should not be posting copyrighted columns in their entirety. One way of getting around the WaPo paywall is to pay for a subscription.

  135. 135.

    WaterGirl

    @Booger: Now that you’ve seen it, I shortened the part that I quoted in the comments.  Gin & Tonic is right – it’s really not for me to decide that it’s okay to post the whole thing this time because it’s so good.  That’s a choice that Alexandra Petri gets to make, not me.

  138. 138.

    Ken

    @Roger Moore: Instead, she bought a cheap plastic tote with walls high enough to keep the cat from kicking litter everywhere.

    Walls that high wouldn’t be cheap, even before you factor in the flashing red light to warn aircraft.

  139. 139.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: That’s a choice that Alexandra Petri gets to make, not me.

    It’s more likely a choice the WaPo corporation gets to make, though Ms. Petri assented to it when she signed her employment contract.

  140. 140.

    Ken

    Anyone giving odds on the next unprompted WTF Gaetz makes?  I’m guessing an unprompted defense of cannibalism provided the victim assents.

  145. 145.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @Brachiator: The whole “ancient aliens” nonsense was explained by a drinking buddy of mine years ago. Planet Earth was visited by the absolute worst of an interplanetary Peace Corps, the screw-ups of the class. He called the mess “Chariots of the Clods”, which would explain a lot about earthlings.

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